Hula and staff, holiday fail and the end of school, lala!

[la_belle_laide]

So much to babble about, but I'll try to keep it short-ish.

Here's my exciting thing: I got a Hula show on the 19th, which, WOW, it's been over a year since I did an actual show. The last one was right after I lost Dad and it was miserable. I mean, the show was pretty good itself but the experience was hard, trying to smile through the whole thing, trying to be cheerful and Aloha etc. This one is going to be so much better. It's a holiday show. I haven't done a holiday performance in, what, like eight years? No one wants Hula in the winter, that's why. Or if they do, they don't ask this far-east gal to come and perform. So, I get to do Hawaiian Santa, White Christmas, Little Drummer Boy (I try to keep holidays secular, but LDB is legit one of my favorite songs ever and I really love the Hula; it's mad difficult unless you know it well enough and have strong thighs, no joke,) and then I think I'll do some poi balls, and a Tahitian set.

And guess what? I'm doing La Toere. Come hell or high water or an extra five pounds or lack of practice. Actually, I really should practice that one. AND. I think that for the first time ever I'm going to do Tahiti, Tahiti, the pop song version. There's going to be a ton of kids there and I think they'll really love that one.

So that's the deal with that.

That aside, I utterly fail at the holidays this year. I really, seriously did try. I didn't want a tree,and I had to sit and think for a long time about why I didn't want one yet. I usually love getting a tree. And I think it's because Dad used to help me move my chair out of the way (or if he wasn't around to do it, I'd move it and when I'd tell him I'd gotten a tree he'd go, "Did you move that chair by yourself? You should have waited for me to do it!") which maybe is a really vague reason, but I couldn't help the association. That, and every single year I've always used Shinigami to go and get my tree. Even after Shinigami more or less quit on me, and I started driving around little red Ronin, I would still rev up Shinigami and take him out for a holiday spin to get my tree. Shinigami is still in the driveway. Last year someone asked me if I was ready to sell and I immediately busted out in irrational tears. I should sell, I know I should, I need to. Someone can fix up that beautiful car and drive it around like it should be driven. It's just, UGH, I have issues.

So! I decided I'd do my own stupid holiday thing, switch it up a little, do something new, right? So instead of a tree and a ton of lights, I figured I would get some of those big-ass pine things that people wind around their porches and I'd put it up all over my house. This way I'd get the nice tree-smell without all the admittedly irrational emotional nonsense. This was a huge effing mistake.





You can't just stick them up all over the place, I guess. I had to cut it into three parts. Decoration fail.

Then I also thought it would be high-freaking-larious if I got two of those stupid balls and hung them side by side, right? Just for a laugh. The ones I found were like millennia old and the boxes were all beaten up. I tried them at the store and the guy even gave me a discount because they were so old. So I made my little holiday gag:




And thought 'Oh, LOL, I am so funnee!" and then the right ball flickered out and has stayed that way. Damn it. I only have one ball for Yule now. Woe.

I remember what else I wanted to rave about. Kung Fu (who is surprised?) In the last few weeks we've been doing staff drills indoors; I mentioned it a few posts ago. On Tuesday (today is Thursday) we did even more two-person drills that were yet cooler than the last. And before that, we did line basics without staff.

Let me talk for a second about the line basics we did. First of all, we did them for about an hour, even going straight through warmup time without quitting. Which, fabulous. You get to that part where you stop feeling things like "ow, pain" and "boy my legs are tired." You just zone right on up out - please understand by my use of many prepositions how meaningful this is. Not only that, but the drills we were doing looked so effing cool, I may have to record it tonight. I always say it's so that we can remember what we were doing and practice them at home but honestly, it's because it looks cool. I can't even lie.

Well, it likely doesn't look as cool when I do them, because I am long-limbed and flaily and I fully realize that I don't have the right amount of control over the reach of my arms. I can actually feel it when I'm getting flaily, and invariably Sifu will come over to me saying something like "hey hey hey hey, Lotus-flower-blossom-san, what exactly are you doing?" I get way too enthusiastic, haha. So then I have to stop, reset my stance, and actually put some thought into it.

It's great, because we do right and left side, and the thing about Kung Fu is that it's so ambidextrous, you have to sync your right and left sides so that they're doing two opposite things, while your legs are pretty much doing yet another thing. You can kind of feel your brain seaming in the middle. It's neat.

So yeah, from Hula to Kung Fu, as usual.

And school. I guess I won't be writing much about that anymore, and I can probably retire my "school" tag. Not get rid of it, but I won't have to use it. Tomorrow is my last day, five clinic hours and then I'm pau. I also get my path paper back, and I'm kind of sweating that. I know I didn't fail, but I don't just want a good grade. I totally suck like that. I want the freaking A. I worked really hard on that paper. More than that, though, I don't want to let my supervisor down. I'll be bummed if I get a B or something. I realize I sound like a child but, well, I cop to that, too.

My last class was yesterday. It was a lousy hour and a half, and then about fifteen minutes of me running around registrar etc. trying to get them to fix up my missing paperwork, HELLO. I paid the extra cash for it five weeks ago (the first aid cert. cards that they misspelled, remember?) and I never heard back from them if they came in. I called, left messages etc. Then yesterday I went up there and was like, "WTF, no one ever called me back. Hope you guys realize I can't graduate without these cards, and today is my last day, why has no one returned my calls?" And she goes, "Oh, that. I do remember you paying, yeah. Umm. The guy who was doing that got fired."

OH, COOL. AND NO ONE TOOK OVER FOR HIM. THANKS GUYS.

I can't even tell you how ready I was to punch the entire effing school right in the ass. Long story short (too late,) I had to go the hell home, fax in my misspelled cards so that they can send them along with a certified letter (that they will write) saying how it's their own stupid fault and that the NYS boards pretty much have to accept them.

So that's my last experience with this idiotic school, way to send-off with a bang.

I'm fairly sure there was something else I wanted to catch up on but I can't think of it right now, which is probably just as well.

So, here, look at some pictures of my fish!

This is Handsome Bob:

He is handsome, isn't he? He's so different. He's kind of a douche, though, always flaring at the other guys.

Lucrezia, Claire and Ari:


And DexterFish:




Those are just the ones in my ten-gallon tank. I'll have to upload some of the ones of my other guys in the 20, one of these times.

Well, I'd better gear up to think about getting out of the chair and feeding the dogs, and then myself, and then going into the stygian, freezing night to Kung Fu.

After tomorrow I don't have to see that stupid college for a really, really long time; not until I have to go back for continuing ed. Which I'm sure they will also screw up, but at least it will be a short term thing. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow!

Comments

[malenka-zeut.livejournal.com]

So happy things are picking up! Your show sounds like a blast, I'd love to see it. I remember LDB Hula, "strong" thighs barely even describes...! Beautiful dance though, I can't hear the song without thinking of that.

Don't feel bad about the deco-fail, we haven't even begun because mom & I are both sick & lack the energy to even think about digging everything out. Haven't even done my cards yet, and I love doing my cards. So anyway, even with only one ball for yule, you're still ahead of us. We remain sans balls.